UK Home Secretary, Jack Straw MP. recently said that, "... good quality relationships ... ", were more important than the institution of marriage, and, that "... we shouldn't get into a paddy about the decline of formal marriage".

He also said, "... we know stability is important for children, and marriage has a better chance of offering that ... though marriage is no guarantee of that".

It seems as though muddled thought is a Straw family trait. In February 2000, Ed Straw (Jack's younger brother) and the chairman of 'Relate', the relationship counselling agency, branded pro-marriage campaigners as, "nuclear family supremacists". He further remarked, "If you really want to promote family stability, then don't mention marriage". Hugh McKinney of the National Family Campaign, said Mr. Straw's comments were, "completely wrong". The Curious Web Site completely agree!

In September 1999, the Lord Chancellor's research secretariat, in a report written by Nottingham University sociologist, Jane Lewis, stated, "Marriage is outdated ..... modern relationships are different".

In October 1999, the House of Lords ruled that homosexual couples count as families in law, thus clearing the way, eventually, for homosexual couples to be allowed to adopt children.

On 29th November 1999, the much heralded, "National Family & Parenting Institute", was launched and immediately nailed its tattered colours to the mast by claiming, "only one in five think it important that children have parents who are married".

The 'New' Labour government, like the 'Old' Tories before them, have consistently shown that they have no real regard for the 'Traditional Family'.

Indeed, the Curious? Website goes as far as to challenge this UK Government to prove we're wrong"

But even more ill conceived legislation is just down the road. In June 2000 the UK Government plans to introduce, "Divorce by application form". Couples will fill in a, 'Form E', which is then handed to a Judge. All this in an effort to cut the cost and acrimony of Divorce. But who is trying to cut divorce rates in the first place and reduce the emotional devastation caused to all the parties involved, not least the children? Not this Government, that much is certain.

The real plumb-line of the family has recently been set by Professor Charlie Lewis. At a recent conference on fatherhood he praised the US sitcom cartoon character, Homer Simpson, as being, "a very good western cultural icon for fathers". No wonder then that we are in the mess we're in if this is today's standard!

But there are still some voices being raised in support of the family. In June 2003, John Pinnington, the Headteacher of the Notre Dame High School in Norwich demanded that UK Ministers do more to promote marriage and that family breakdown is in danger of affecting children's achievements. UK Education Secretary Charles Clarke, who was visiting the school at the time, insisted that the Government is committed to the family.

The Curious? Website begs to differ.

So is the concept of, "The Traditional Family", still vital as we step into the 3rd millennium?

The "Traditional Family" of the early 20th Century, by which we mean, Father, Mother and Child/Children plus Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins, all living within a reasonable distance of each other, gave way to the "Nuclear Family" of the 60's and 70's. This new unit, usually composed of only Father, Mother and Child/Children, was separated, in some instances, by hundreds of miles, from other family members, often by the needs of employment, housing and other economic factors.

Between the late 70's and the 90's the idea of "family" was recognised to now include the "single-parent" family. Mother and Child/Children or, less commonly, Father and Child/Children fast became an important cultural grouping. At the same time second marriages (and often third marriages) introduced step-parents, step-uncles, step-grandparents etc. into the mix.

This is the following modern definition of the family given by 'The Children's Society';

"An emotionally supportive network of adults and children, some of whom live together or have lived together" (Daily Mail 5th May 1998).

What a confused mixture of doublespeak, made worse because 'The Children's Society', is the Church of England's leading charity and surely should be strengthening, not undermining, the traditional family.

Another factor in this increasingly fluid and deteriorating family situation, has been the promotion of single-sex parental couples (notably Lesbians) who quite deliberately raise children into an unbalanced and unnatural 'family' (using the term in its doublespeak sense).

The result is that vast numbers of children have grown up, and continue to grow up, with no stable home-life, an absent, or uncaring father (or step-father), and unsuitable role-models. This has been catastrophic in terms of the social and cultural place of children in our society. Over the latter half of this century, children, undisciplined, and many times unloved, at home, unloved and uncared for outside the home, have created a multi-generational sub-culture. Young men and Women, often having had no parenting input as children, become parents themselves at increasingly lower ages, and raise children like themselves: lacking in basic parenting skills and acceptable standards of social behaviour. So the circle continues .....

The government, in the UK especially, has done little to strengthen what remained of the "Traditional", or "Nuclear Family". Rather tax legislation was biased away from those who were married with children; those who had the potential to offer stable environments in which to raise children. At every turn the policy seemed to be to weaken the family and dis-empower those who wanted to live in a stable situation.

Research has proven that children who come from broken backgrounds, divorced parents, etc. are much more likely to be involved in anti-social and criminal behaviour.

Let's state our case. This is NOT an economic or environmental issue. It is a moral and ethical one, and to say it is otherwise is to insult those who are in poorer conditions and are from broken backgrounds (as indeed is the author of this text) and yet had a parent/s who struggled to do what was right, and raise their child/children with a good sense of right and wrong.

So, why is the concept of, "The Family", still vital at the end of the 20th Century? Because a Man and Woman, committed to each other in marriage, having been taught the basic essentials of parenting, and living in a moral and ethical framework, is still the best environment in which to raise children.

An 'old fashioned' concept in many people's mind, but no less true for all of that.

Let's do all we can to strengthen the real traditional family - it is one of our best building blocks for a better society.

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